curl away where the elevated lawns met the base of the house. Having seen the basement disguised by the mound, she knew to expect any alterations. But evidence that pillars had been removed surprised her. Why go to such lengths to disguise a dollhouse?
The basement, she realized, was not actually beneath ground level—it simply had grass-covered earth mounded against its walls. It had been hidden from the outside.
The front door began to appear in the center between places where two pillars had been.
The chatter began again. Different than she had heard before. Agitation was something she expected, but this became a rising and falling wail, anguish, and not a single discernable word except,
Marley worked faster and faster, steadily revealing the walls of the dollhouse as they had once been.
She dropped the chisel. Not accidentally, but because it fell from her fingers of its own volition.
The room darkened.
Winnie gave a single muffled whine.
No lights formed on the ceiling, no sign of a funnel appeared, and the Ushers were quiet.
Marley’s eyes opened wide. She couldn’t blink. A deep, deep longing didn’t shock her. She wanted Gray. He was her and she was him and together they were a whole with twice the power of their individuality. When she had first seen him, complete with the scars that were imprinted on his memory but not his face, he had come to her because they were destined to be together. Their Bonding had been preordained.
A wind or a strong current wrapped her body and carried her backward. She stumbled over Winnie, but couldn’t react. The dog didn’t cry out.
Free falling, she tried to move her arms, but they remained splayed at her sides until she settled on her back, staring upward into the darkness.
Marley had no feeling at all, other than anticipation.
She saw a small room, old-fashioned, but plush. A woman, older and plainly dressed in gray, but wearing an elaborate rose-colored tulle hat, paced, wringing her hands, but it wasn’t the woman that held Marley’s attention.
A little girl sat on the edge of a straight-backed chair and whereas the woman moved in shadow, the child was illuminated as if by a spotlight. Thin with blond braids and dressed in a white buttoned blouse and jeans, her sneakered feet swung inches off the floor.
She stared ahead, her blue eyes huge behind round glasses.
She stared at Marley.
The child took gulps of air through her mouth. She coughed, but never looked away from Marley. Tears ran slowly down the girl’s cheeks.
Marley tried to speak to her, but couldn’t.
Two small hands extended toward Marley and the little girl said, “Come and get me, please. He said if you come I can go home.”
Marley reached for the girl. “Where are you?” she said, and this time had no difficulty speaking. “Tell me where to find you.”
In front of the child, the face of Pearl Brite appeared. This time the woman’s beautiful skin was marred by the type of welts Marley knew too well. “You’ll know how to come,” Pearl said. “He says you’ve been here before, but you must come quickly or it’ll be too late.”
But she didn’t know how to get there. These visions had nothing to do with the house. There had been no portal. She had not left her body. There was power worked upon her, yes, but a different power.
It was that creature, she was sure of it.
“I don’t know how to come to you,” she said, choking on each word.
“Be ready,” Pearl said, and dropped her voice to a faint whisper. “He’s torturing us.”
Chapter 43
Gray could have closed his eyes and followed the sound of sirens to their destination. Any hope of keeping the lid on even part of the investigation was gone. Thanks to the screaming cars, their lights flashing, humanity in the streets had turned like a tide to rush, staring, after the police cars, the medic vehicles—and what most of the public wouldn’t recognize as the most ominous sign of all—a large, white crime scene van with its multiple locked compartments.
He and Nat had barely arrived back at the precinct from the morgue when the call came in for Nat to get to Caged Birds on N. Peters Street, the club where Pipes Dupuis used to sing.
The meeting with Blades had frustrated both of them. He seemed to want information, but he wasn’t giving any hints that might nudge them in the right direction. Nat and Gray both came away with the feeling that Blades knew more than he was telling—not that the bizarre DNA discussion hadn’t been absorbing enough on its own.
Gray had tested the theory that Blades didn’t have any final reports and was probably wrong, but he only got more convinced the M.E. could be right.
Bucky Fist drove with Nat at his side. Voices barked over the radio and Nat carried on what sounded like a monologue with brief flurries of punctuation.
Sunk deep in the backseat, Gray tried to call Marley. He got her canned message—again. By now she’d be with Sidney Fournier, not an idea that gave him comfort.
A body had been found at Caged Birds.
So far there was no identification.
Bucky tucked the car into the trough formed by official vehicles ahead and cruised, one elbow resting on the window rim.
“You sure there’s no ID yet?” Gray said, raising his voice over the jet stream of warm, wet wind through Bucky’s window.
“If I knew—you’d know,” Nat said without turning around.
“What d’you hope for?” Gray asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You want a new one or an old one?”
Nat snorted. “Nice turn of phrase. If it’s Liza, Amber or Pearl I don’t think I’ll feel better than if it’s another one.
“Sure,” Gray said. He breathed out slowly. “We can hope.” But he didn’t.
In front of Caged Birds, official vehicles turned the street into a parking lot. Bucky slipped into a spot and the three of them got out.
Nat led the way into the club. Even with the doors blocked open it reeked of stale beer. Gray didn’t recall a bar or club that didn’t look tawdry in daylight.
Weak but definite, he smelled traces of an unforgettable odor, the one that faded slowly after Marley’s encounter at River Road. The same one that hung around Shirley Cooper’s body.
He deliberately looked ahead, past Nat and Bucky and the bevy of uniforms waiting for instructions.
The first face he recognized was the gouge-cheeked pale one belonging to Dr. Blades. Gray’s stomach turned over. Blades was a man who considered himself too important to get down in the trenches, at least until initial dirty work was done. Since Blades had to be all of seven feet tall he’d be hard to miss in any crowd, but standing back from everyone else, staring straight ahead and completely immobile, he was as out of place in the teeming club as the Eiffel Tower would be in the middle of a school yard recess.
“That stench again,” Nat said abruptly, putting his hand to his nose. “It’s different from a decomposing body, but it’s filthy. It was around Shirley Cooper the first time I saw her body, too.”
Desperation rattled Gray. “I could still smell it today.” With every passing hour he was more convinced that Marley was marked for attack by a maniac.
Chief Beauchamp was the next unwelcome surprise. He saw Nat and approached, head slightly down like a bull coming in for a charge. “Interrupt your tanning session, did I?” he said when Nat got close enough. He showed
